Princess Takiyasha's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

The alligator rank reformed below and came again, twice as thick. Gral held the breach, but even his axe could not stop a flood. Takiyasha climbed the tower for a wider view. What she saw stopped her breath. The king had wheeled a wooden catapult to the tree line. Alligator banners hung from its frame. A spiked stone sat in its cradle, aimed at the wall. One shot would tear the breach wide open, and Gral with it. She had five warriors to stop an army. Five was not enough. She needed a sixth thing, and she had one left. At the tower's crown stood the great ballista, its arms carved from bone tusks. Sseth crouched beside it, loading arrows for his bow. "That machine below," Takiyasha said. "It fires once, and the wall is gone. We fire first." Sseth's forked tongue flicked. "The bolt is heavy. Two arms cannot crank it and aim it together." She called down the wall for hands. A snake-tailed swordsman answered first, sliding up the ladder on his coils, katana still in his grip. Then a serpent-haired archer climbed after him, snakes hissing around his helm, his own bow slung on his back. She did not know their names. She knew only that they had drifted to her fires since the barrier fell, drawn to a princess who fought. Now she needed their arms. "Crank," Takiyasha ordered. The swordsman sheathed his blade and hauled the cord. The bone arms bent back, groaning. The archer sighted along the shaft with a hunter's stillness. Below, the enemy crew swung their catapult arm down and locked it. They were loading. They were slow. "Now," the serpent archer said. He loosed the ballista's release. The bone bolt screamed across the gap. It struck the catapult's frame dead center. Wood split. The banners tore loose. The spiked stone dropped from its broken cradle and crushed two of its own crew. The machine folded into a heap of timber and rope. The alligator line faltered. Gral roared into the gap and drove them back three steps. Sseth's arrows fell among them like rain. The rank broke and pulled into the trees, dragging their wounded. The wall stood. Takiyasha gripped the ballista's frame and breathed. Two more warriors had climbed to her side and fought. Her force was growing, one desperate night at a time. Then the serpent archer pointed his bow at the retreating army. "There," he said. "The one who wheeled the catapult. He wears a burned crest." Takiyasha looked. Below the tree line, an officer barked orders over the ruined machine. His chest plate bore a scorch mark shaped like a claw. Gral, in the breach, went still. His head turned toward that crest. His grip tightened on his axe. Takiyasha had promised him a warchief. Now Gral had seen a burned crest for himself, and he would want the truth before dawn.